


no. 1 party anthem

by tokyomew



Series: in the night (she hears it callin’) [5]
Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alcohol, Drabble, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, more like jeno runs around chasing renjun who may or may not want to be caught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyomew/pseuds/tokyomew
Summary: If Renjun’s still here, it means he’s not off with a faceless stranger doing god-knows-what. And that also means Jeno still has a shot after all.





	no. 1 party anthem

**Author's Note:**

> i call everything i write thats under 2k a drabble for some reason
> 
> based off the song of the same title by arctic monkeys
> 
> unbeta-ed

The collar of Jeno’s popped collar is truly doing him no good. The most it’s doing, actually, is irritating the nape of his neck, which isn’t helping the cold sweat he’s broken out into either. But he’s going for James Dean, and sometimes we make sacrifices.

He stares at the stranger in front of him in silent but pressing expectancy if the quirk of his eyebrow weren’t enough for the guy to go by.

“I think I saw him a few minutes ago,” his slurred voice tells him and with a small word of gratitude, Jeno is off again. His nerves are still buzzing with both the effects of one too many cans of Bud Light and just—nerves. But at those words, they lessen their incessant and irrational anxieties a considerable amount. Not that that’s very much in the grand scheme of things.

If he’s still here, it means he’s not off with a faceless stranger doing god-knows-what. And that also means Jeno still has a shot after all.

Jeno knew when he pulled up to the house at 3am, there were no guarantees Renjun would even still be around. He’s the type to get smashed in the first hour and stumble out of the house in the arms of someone equally as messed up the next, either onto the next party destination or wherever else his intoxicated brain could come up with. He was good at that, at coming up with something crazy on a whim. The thrill of the chase is what entices Jeno the most. Jeno’s used to the chase. And he’s more than willing to do it. He doesn’t forget to thank the stranger, but he doesn’t doubt that he didn’t hear it.

Pushing through a hazy crowd of stumbling drunks is a tedious process and in his head, Jeno applauds frequent club-goers for their tenacity. (Although, he’s not exactly unfamiliar to it either.) This fact is especially true if your vision is impaired by more than just one thing—both of which are true in the span of Jeno’s mission.

The world is dim through the lenses of the pair of aviators perched atop his straight nose. Jeno doesn’t bother taking them off, not when it keeps the people thinking to press up against him and deter him from his objectives at a comfortable distance. He doesn’t mind if that’s because they think he’s a weirdo. He doesn’t care much for anyone’s opinion save for one special exception.

Another good thing the sunglasses are for are shielding his vision just enough so that he won’t be forced to take notice of the countless sweaty couples pressed up against walls. He doesn’t need the constant reminder of exactly what he wasn’t getting. It even softens the flashing lights that usually make his head spin. And he thinks he looks kinda cool.

His intoxicated, sunglass-ed vision does no part in assisting his search for Renjun. There is no luck finding him amongst the crowds of people on the first floor so Jeno makes his way up a staircase at the end of the dimly lit hall, much too narrow for the amount of people loitering about on every other step. He climbs over them with uncoordinated effort and whispered apologies.

A few doors along the upstairs are open, a few are closed, and just one of them has a sock hanging on the handle. Jeno makes sure he stays far from that door.

Peering into the first two open doors he sees little, just guests taken to pass out on spare beds and drunks puking over open lidded toilets. He hears him before he sees him.

There is twinkling laughter that is immediately recognised over the sound of the pulsing walls and a chorus of more laughter. Hearing was always a sense he was most grateful for. His eyes strained to find the source.

At the last open door he is greeted with a cloud of smoke. The organic stench of marijuana mixes with a more mellow tobacco in the air, both of which Jeno was familiar to but not by his own free will. There wasn’t much you could avoid in a college dormitory, even if everyone on the floor was trying their damndest to mask it under a layer of perfume and Febreze plug-in air fresheners. Not that it even mattered because the RA was doing the same thing.

Renjun sits on a windowsill across the room chatting with people sitting on the floor. He’s in the circle without even being in the circle, an outside point while still being on the graph. In his dainty hand is a half smoked cigarette Jeno grimaces at. On his lips is the midpoint of a laugh, something light and carefree where his teeth are showing and his eyes are crinkled. Jeno overhears him saying he’s good friends with the hosts in a sarcastic sort of way and the circle erupts in laughter again. In his other hand is a bottle he takes a lazy sip at.

It’s a moment of standing awkwardly in the doorway and feeling like an outsider before Renjun’s eyes catch his own and his next breath is stuck in his throat. Luckily, the sunglasses disguise the panic. Renjun’s gaze doesn’t falter, instead it becomes something of a smolder, beckoning. Jeno’s sure there’s no one else in this doorway instead of him.

He forces the breath out and strides over to the window with a feigned manner of belonging there. It’s uncomfortable to him, standing by Renjun while he is seated, having to talk over him like this, but he’s decided it would be more unnatural to take a seat now that he’s already leaning onto the wall on his elbow.

Jeno watches Renjun take a long drag of his cigarette in awe of the curve of his jaw and the way the cloud of smoke pours out of his parted lips like a waterfall.

With his last spur of confidence, he says slyly, “Do I know you from somewhere?” to which Renjun gives an easy smile, the type of smile that wouldn’t cost him anything later. Jeno isn’t really asking to ask, so Renjun doesn’t really answer to answer.

“Maybe you do.”

He started it, but Jeno can’t help but be frustrated beyond compare at the nonchalance. But he was also talking to Renjun, something he couldn’t say he was doing even five minutes ago, so he gives himself that.

Of course he knows him. Everyone at this party knew Renjun from _somewhere_. In their case, it’s a little different.

He’s still being looked at with that smile and Jeno knows he has to say anything to keep the ball rolling, it was in his side of the court now. The thing is, he hasn’t thought past that starting line. Everything else coming out his mouth from this point on was his brain working real-time.

“Well, I’m glad I found you here. Not— _here_ , but here, you know? Like the party, not this place,” he rambles and in ten seconds flat he’s lost whatever cool air he thought he had going for him. Jeno’s helpless to the rant once it starts, and under the influence of one too many drinks he doesn’t even attempt to stop himself. He goes on about how he was worried he would miss Renjun—but not that kind of miss, and why he was here—not that he was here ‘cause of Renjun or anything and he sounds more like he’s convincing himself of it rather than convincing Renjun of anything other than that he was completely and utterly infatuated with him. If Jeno was to look up from his scuffed leather dress shoes at any point in time, he would have seen Renjun’s smile, a little more genuine, a little more secretive. But he doesn’t and Renjun is back to blank before he does.

He ends the jabbering with an out of place, “My name’s Jeno—by the way. Lee Jeno.”

Renjun’s expression could be described as intrigued by some and humorous by Jeno.

“You’re kinda cute, Lee Jeno.” Jeno isn’t sure if he should be flattered or scared. He’s a bit of both. It’s not a new phrase to either of them, but in the setting, it feels sudden. Jeno has not heard these words from the lips of an intoxicated Renjun, the lips of Renjun at a party. It’s unfamiliar territory. He reminds himself to stop thinking about lips. 

The moment of something between them doesn’t last long for an arm breaks into their bubble and makes a grab for Renjun’s arm, pulling it towards them.

Wong Yukhei takes a drag from Renjun’s cigarette from Renjun’s hand all while locking wide, reddened eyes with Jeno’s right through the tinted lenses of his aviators and straight into his annoyance. Now he knows where the smell of marijuana came from. Smoke billows around them and somehow the same smoke from the same cigarette looks very different to Jeno.

Renjun doesn’t mind the intrusion, in fact he welcomes Yukhei with a smile that the other boy doesn’t even see. Jeno thinks it’s a waste.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah?” he asks to Renjun, but looks at Jeno still.

So Jeno was late after all. Maybe if he had taken up Renjun’s suggestion to come with him, it would have been different. With one warm suggestion of walking them out, Jeno stalks after the two, Yukhei’s toned arm slung around Renjun’s smaller frame engulfed in Yukhei’s jacket. Renjun spares one last gaze at Jeno as he climbs into the passenger seat of Yukhei’s car. The few people hanging around the front lawn of the house whistle at them as they drive off.

Jeno feels a rush of hurt come and go, leaving him the slightest bit numb and aching for another drink. He’s used to this—being left in the dust and all while Renjun is gallivanting around town on the arm of someone who managed to sweep him up faster than the others. This person was not him. It’s simply not his place. He knew his place in Renjun’s life.

It’s a game they play. Renjun goes to parties, Jeno may or may not find him at said parties. Either way, Jeno wakes up to the warmth of a hungover Renjun pressed to his side underneath his sheets and the cold morning air of their shared dorm room biting at the side of his body uncovered by his blanket fit for one. And at the end of the day into the beginning of the next, he’s won at least that.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i don’t really know— just another late night idea executed late at night because i didnt feel like working on the countless other things i could be working on. and i really really really want jeno to wear more leather
> 
> to clarify, they are roommates (gasp— they are roommates) and jeno follows renjun to these parties sometimes hoping he will be the one to bring renjun home so he can tuck him into a warm bed but all is well even if he doesnt cause renjun always comes home to him
> 
> their relationship is undefined 
> 
> comments and kudos are much appreciated. also bother me on [cc](https://curiouscat.me/guanhengs) or [twt](https://twitter.com/renhyuks)


End file.
